I'm not even sure how to describe this issue, but in a nutshell we went throught the problem a few months back of VSD quitting (error) before completely publishing my 200+ page website. So, rather than drive myself crazy, I have been uploading manually from the folder where I save my website on my HD.

Well as you probably surmized, I am now crazy and after many updates to my website and added pages, I have about 4 times the number of files that are actually needed, due to changed image numbers, etc. This is really becoming a problem for me. And now when I save an update, the file numbers used sometime conflict with previous saved images and this throws my website into a graphical tornado (see: http://www.kennethlanesmithgallery.com/ … house.html and compare it to the Previous, or Next page. I just updated 24 pages and many of them are now messed up like this one)

So, is it possible to publish to a local drive? This way I could delete the exisiting files on our server and then FTP the published site, less all the extra old image files. Sorry, but we did try S-Drive as well and that didn't work either for some reason. Besides, I really want my site on our server -sorry:-)(

So, can this be done? I really hope I described this so that non-crazy people can understand it:-)

Thanks for any help!

Kenneth

This is actually already done for you now. When you save your site, all of these files are generated automatically. Just go into the _websites folder and you will find everything there.

Kenneth have you not considered spliting your website up into numerous smaller websites,

sounds daunting but its easy

(1) land and sea scapes

(2) lighthouses

(3) Birds and animals

so on and s forth

then you would only be uploading a fraction of it for every update,

my website struggles at presently 55 pages i think

Kenneth follow Scott's statement and if you contact me I have a solution for you. It is what I use. I have changed my profile and I will leave it for a day. 200 + pages is one large site. What Viv says also makes sense. Looking at your site, which is very good by the way. I am sure you could split up the site into sections which will cut down errors.

I am lucky if I exceed 10 pages. Still I use forms a lot so I like to get the files up fast. This stuff is a hobby with me that pays for CC stuff etc. but you are welcome to a copy. I don't mind helping a fellow member.

That is what I have done for additional pages created after the initial site was generated. The problem is that when I create a new website and load those pages into the same directory on our server, VSD sometimes uses the same img numbers on the new pages as it did on the original pages. This is the root of my problem because now, for example, the file name img_1234 that may have been a bird picture on the original website pages, has been assigned to a button, or background graphic, or whatever on the new page and where there is suppose to be a graphic of a bird is now a button or visa versa.

Is this explanation making any sense?

My solution up until now has been to go through the entire 200+ pages on the site and identify the "double img_#s" and manually correct this. So using the example above, img_1234 is renamed img_1234_A and then I have to go into the HTML file and change that reference, and then upload img_1234_A. This is getting extremely time consuming as my site continues to grow.

I just saved the main website file into a new directory on my HD called April_update. The combined size is 36MB. Looking at the directory I had been using previously, the combined size is 81 MB. Clearly a lot of redundant renamed img_ files.

So..... would saving my revisions to a new directory on my HD and then replacing the entire website on our server with the new updated version each time I do a revision, be basically the same as using the Publish option?

A little more work in a round-about way, but yes.

It looks like it's time to consider a gallery/shopping cart combination. Just update your galleries and let the software do the "heavy lifting".
Here's an example (right-click & view source, check meta name/content to see the software used for this):
http://mjsphotography.eu/

I love VSD, but even for the few artist's sites I've done in it, adding in outside galleries was a must. There had to be an easy, efficient way to manage and update hundreds of photos. This keeps the image files separate from VSD's files – a lot less confusing.
I don't know if the CC Shopping Cart would be a good way to go for you. Someone more familiar with building large shops (involving many categories) in it would know better if it would work well as a gallery/shop.

Thanks all. I have saved the website locally and then replaced the existing over-bloated site with the new one and all is well again.

As for updating, I appreciate the thought, but I am just starting to get comfortable with VSD, so that'll be enough for my tiny brain to handle for now:-)

Sincere thanks for the help.

Kenneth